February
by le magnifique
Summary: Blair Waldorf doesn’t cry while she peers at all the people, because Nathaniel Archibald wasn’t really dead. Blair-Centric, BlairChuck


Warnings: Slight sexual content, character death

Paring: Blair centric, BlairChuck, BlairNate

Summary: I hope I did okay, first story here ;) This story only goes up to 1x13

--

Febuary 13th

Blair Waldorf doesn't cry while she peers at all the people, because Nathaniel Archibald wasn't really dead.

Of course he wasn't.

She doesn't really comprehend what's going on while she speaks about him, her voice unemotional and dead but people don't gossip for once because she's filling the silence. She doesn't really think about how her only true love is lying in a box a few feet away from her, and she doesn't fret about how her black shoes are pinching her feet.

She feels hollow.

In a way, it's nice. Her voice drones on and on but she can't really remember writing this speech or even getting out of bed that morning. Did she even go to bed at all? Her head isn't focused on anything but to keep saying these words of endearment and honey lies, not how her thighs look in her pencil skirt or if black makes her look flushed. Her arms feel effortlessly light, yet stiff and cold like an old pair of never worn gloves she'd find in the back of her closet. Her stomach feel empty, too, but a voice in the back of her head tells her that isn't new.

Blair doesn't push the strand of hair that's fallen irritably on her cheek bone, though she reminds herself that she would have another day, another memory, when this strange yet comforting emptiness is consuming her.

--

Febuary 5th

Serena cries and cries and Blair isn't really sure why, because Nate isn't dead. Of course.

But every day since two weeks ago Blair drags limp Serena to the toilet to puke her last night out, the blonde unable to remember even drinking. Blair rubs her back and soothes her, but her mind is elsewhere. Where, she couldn't tell you. She doesn't know herself. When Serena sees Blair prim, beautiful face without tears or swollen eyes, she cries more, harder. Blair can't see what Serena can.

Blair's been almost always at the Van Der Bass Suite for these two, emotion void weeks, and she's picked up quite a few things. Lily is running ragged for Anne, though she shouldn't in her condition. That was until Anne Archibald fled to Norway or Sweden or wherever and hasn't been seen since. Blair always thought Anne was a woman of great stature and show and she finds herself a little disappointed that Mrs. Archibald is so distressed.

Blair notes that she hasn't seen Chuck once and that old lingering hate-that-she-notices feeling returns to her for a split second before she returns to tucking in the white bed sheets in her best friend's room. She hasn't seen him since those words in the bar and she can't find the old hate and agony she used to feel everything she thought about that memory. Blair searches for it for a second, but her chest doesn't drop painfully and she doesn't crinkle her eyes. She returns to the bed sheets.

Bart Bass calls it denial. Blair says it isn't so. There is nothing to be in denial about. Nathaniel Archibald isn't dead. Of Course.

--

Febuary 19th

Some nights Blair returns home after Serena has passed out cold. The house is empty, of course, and Blair gets an odd satisfaction to hear her heels click on the hard flooring. She waltzes up the stairs because she can and she knows no one is looking, but there's no real feeling of satisfaction in that.

Blair throws up what she hasn't eaten of course, but before all this she did that anyway.

She tediously picks out her outfit for the next morning, though school was out long ago. It still feels like the middle of January. Shoes, skirts, tights, headbands, camisoles, sweaters, jacket. Perfect. Blair finds time to reorganize her book shelves, ordering novels by author last name and angling pictures of Serena and Chuck and Kati and Is. She moves nick knacks to one shelf and then to another until it's past midnight. By then the TV is on and Blair watches it while really not watching it.

Her bed remains untouched by the next morning.

The usual buzz of her cell phone is absent because two weeks ago she threw her phone into the Atlantic Ocean. Blair can't remember why, but she doesn't miss it one bit.

--

Febuary 10th

Erik comes over that morning and Blair sees dark circles and matted hair. She wrinkles her nose in tiny disgust thought Erik will always have a place in her heart. He offers her coffee and a walk around Central Park, though it's six in the morning. Blair throws her trench coat over her slip and slides on a pair of stacked heels. She doesn't remind herself how fat she looks when she passes the mirror on the way out. It strikes Blair Waldorf as very odd.

The morning air is bitter but the sun is bright through the clouds. For a while Erik doesn't say anything. Blair doesn't notice until his infected voice rings through her brain. She stops and stares at him for a second before continuing to walk, because it's easier when your focused on more than one thing with conversations this tense.

"Blair," he says, and he sounds like a seventy year old man instead of a sophomore. "You know Lily is arranging the fun--"

"Yes," Blair cuts him off. She waits for him to start a new sentence.

"She wants you to speak there during the funer--"

"Okay," she cuts him off again.

"It's in three days."

"I know, Erik" she says blankly. Erik stops so Blair does because even if she is hollowed, a Waldorf will never make things awkward for themselves. Eleanor always drilled that into Blair head, among other things.

He sighs heavily and runs a hand though his uncombed hair before embracing Blair. Blair doesn't understand what's happening until it's half way over. His body is warm and plush, and he smells like a mix of Aqua De Gio and sweat. He's almost as tall as her now and she envelops in the hug, hoping to steal some of that human warmth for herself because she feels so cold, hard and plastic.

He steps away, nods, and before Blair knows it, he's gone.

She left in the cutting February wind, contemplating why the pond reflects such a pale, bitter faced girl.

--

Febuary 7th

Blair's in Serena's room again, the blonde hair cascading off the bed as the owner of the golden locks sleep drunkenly to a rhythmic beat Blair can't help but notice.

She's flipping thought movies, trying to decide if Legally Blonde 2 was really worth watching again, thought she'd seen it two nights ago when she couldn't sleep. Her slender fingers flip through DVD's until she comes across a stray one out of it's case and Blair picks it up, ready to place it back in its home.

But instead of movie writing, it just says SERENA NATE BLAIR CHUCK 2003. Curious enough to place it into the DVD player, Blair watches as the screen turns blue and then flicks towards 1812 and the hollow feeling Blair feels so accustomed to starts to ebb away. She doesn't realize it at first. It's Chuck and Serena at first, bantering in their thirteen year old bodies about where the camera should go. Serena's blonde hair is wilder than ever, if that could be possible. Chuck's messed up hair looks like someone gave him a noogie.

Soon, Blair watches her tiny thirteen year old version saunter into the film, sitting properly down next to Serena's slouched yet radiate frame. Blair watches in fascination as Nate comes and sits next to Blair, wrapping his arm around her and looking into the camera. Thirteen year old Blair shushes Chuck and Serena's meaningless squabble.

"Alright," Nate laughs, "This is to the future us!"

Thirteen year old Serena giggles and then adds, "In that time, Natie and Blair Bear will be married, Charlie will be castrated and I will be Queen of New York!"

Thirteen year old Chuck sends Serena a glare before speaking quietly. Blair had forgotten how quiet he had been. "Serena will be married to some stuffy, boring old banker, I will be dating Heidi Klum and yes, out dear beloved over there will be off in matrimony."

Maybe it was the way his eyes sparkled as he kissed her cheek or how his has voice floated through the speakers. Maybe it was her wholly innocence not yet devoured by gossip, secrets and betrayal. Or maybe it was the fact that the hollow shield she had unknowingly crafted broke, and the pain came crashing down.

Blair felt her whole body freeze and stiffen, before she gingerly left the DVD in the player, her body shaking as she stumbled down the dark hallway. Surely everyone was asleep. As she needed as something to eat --anything would do. Her feet carried her to the Van Der Bass kitchen, the room engulfed in darkness as she ripped open the cabinets and drawers searching for food.

Tidal waves of agonizing pain became of Blair, sending her trembling as she shoved another chiffon cookies in her mouth. She swallows it, half chewed before fixating on another one. His green eyes sparkled as she convulsed in pain again, her body gasping for air as she shook, tears not fully leaving her eyes.

Suddenly, very suddenly, the lights switch on and the young Bass is standing there with dishelmed funeral wear. She stops only for a second to cry out a strangled "Chuck" before crumpling.

She's in his cold arms before she hit's the floor.

He holds her on the ground of the kitchen surrounded by chiffon cookies and cheez-its and he's rocking her as she shakes. She feels like her bones are braking and bending and her stomach flip flops back and forth but she doesn't really realize anything but the fact that Nate is gone, and she'll never see his eyes or smile of confused expression again. He's really gone.

Blair's not sure who's shaking harder, but her frail body soon expires and she lays dripping wet but the tears will not cease. She doesn't want them to. Her body is sore and her face crumpled but it's nothing compared to the slow aching beat in her chest as Chuck scoops her up with shaky arms and carries her to his room.

--

Febuary 13th.

She's speaking about what a caring, honest person he was.

She's lying.

Not in the mean way, Blair reasons, because nothing she could say about Nate could ever be too horrible. But it's the little resentful monster inside her that tells her it's a lie, because Nathaniel Archibald lied too much or too little to ever be considered honest.

But the little resentful monster reminding her she's lying to all these stone faces draped in black isn't talking. Blair Waldorf, the Princess of the UES is, and Blair never tells anything but sugar dresses lies. There isn't even any guilt involved. And why would there be? Nate isn't dead. Of Course.

But she realizes it she's reached the end of the paper she's written about the love of her life, and thinks vaguely of how he was the love of her life. People clap as she steps off the stadium in black stilettos and takes a seat next to sobbing Serena Van Der Woodsen. On the other side of her is Chuck Bass, who Blair finally sees after two weeks.

It turns out he was in his suite all along. His eyes are hard and focused to the front, but the red glaze over gives it away that he's human. His hands are folded neatly in his lamp, the black Armani cuffs folded back perfectly. He's already been to one of these in his life time and Blair remembers all too well of that year. His perfectly messed up hair looks a little too messed up today, and his skin looks like marble and that mouth of his is so pursed it won't ever relax. Blair wonders if he's holding back tears like he did all those years ago when his mother killed herself.

--

Febuary 14th.

She's still holding the tissues she doesn't need, because she isn't crying.

She sits on her small vanity stool, looking at her hands and kneading her cold hard knuckles. If she were in a movie, she'd be perfectly poised. But usually in movies the main character is thin, beautiful, and has a heart. They aren't broken, not really, because they're just acting.

Acting and movies is all fake, but Blair refuses to even accept that because it's so beautiful.

Kind of like herself.

She rolls the expensive tissue in her hands over and over again as she stares at her bare feet, the toes painted and glossed and perfect but Blair for once doesn't care how beautiful and neat she is. She just doesn't. Her thoughts are incoherent and half of them aren't even there, it's just empty space, her eyes focusing and refocusing.

There's a knock at the door and it's Chuck Bass, Chuck fucking Bass, but Blair can say she's not surprised.

He says a bunch of words that she'll probably wish she would have listened to later on, so she can keep them and hold them and maybe even throw back at him. But she doesn't and she pulls him down on her bed so he can kiss her, kiss so hard it hurts. It doesn't hurt Blair, not really, because you don't hurt when you're numb.

They tumble around, both fighting for control and neither wanting it, but they've don't know any other because this is how it's always been. As he pushes into her she rolls her head and moans, her brown curly hair getting caught in her mouth and eyes but she doesn't move it, her hands trapped underneath his cold, sweating, body.

Small tears fall from her eyes as he groans quietly, too quietly, and she realizes that half the droplets on her face are not her own. She looks up to see his eyes closed, tears falling out a fast pace than she though possible. When he rolls off her she lies there, wrapped up in blankets and comforters and Chuck's back is facing her, only a sheet covering him.

Goosebumps trail up his arms, she sees, and it's so all so real, but Blair refuses to accept that Chuck is crying - crying, because it's so beautiful.

So broken.

--

Febuary 15th.

Now it all makes sense.

He was dead. The nights she drug a drunk Serena around to her house, the abandonment of Chuck, the way her mother told her not to go to school, and the Dean let her off without any precautions. The fact that Anne had left, and Lily was running rampaged around and Bart was signing documents and Erik had hugged her with his warm, smelling, body.

Why she had to lie and make speeches about him, and really, she always kind of knew, but not really.

Nathaniel Archibald was dead.

She thinks about this as she holds old photographs in her hand as Chuck lies next to her, fast asleep, and she gets fingerprints all over them on purpose because that's what Nate would have done. He would have laughed and said that they're just photographs, and Blair would argue that they're documented memories.

Maybe Nate was right.

Maybe, maybe Nate was right about a lot of things.

When Blair Waldorf really thinks about it, she cries a little bit because she never really took the time to actually tell him that she was proud of him, and she loved him, and he was a good boyfriend, and she knew, somewhere inside, he loved her too.

See, now it all makes sense to Blair Waldorf.

--

Too messy? sorry.

I hope I did okay. Reviews?


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